windows me freezes during boot

[JetaJam]

I installed a new mobo about a month ago. Everything went well and the puter worked fine. Then about 2 weeks later it started freezing up during boot. It just stops loading windows. I then hit the reset button and it stops at the options screen, (normal boot, safe mode, bootlog txt, and step by step), so I hit normal and it boots right up. This only happens when I first turn it on in the morning. Through out the day I can hit reset, (via the start button) and everything is fine. Does anyone have any suggestions on this, it's driving me crazy. This is a home built with a soyo sy-tisu mobo, celeron 1.2 ghz, maxtor 40 gig 7200rpm hdd, aopen geforce2 mx400 graphics card.

[Force Flow]

Does it freeze during shut down for the last time before you turn it on in the morning?

[JetaJam]

Hi force flow, No it does'nt. In fact it shuts down so fast some times it scares me. I can see the (it's now safe to turn off your computer) screen for about 1ns and then it's off.

[Force Flow]

I take it that it's win95, right?

[JetaJam]

No it's Windows ME and it's the only os thats ever been on this machine.......ME has always worked fairly well for me, until now.

[Force Flow]

Hmm... I thought that 3.1 and 95 were the only O/S's that had that "it is now safe to shut down your computer" message. Oh well...

Do you have any programs running in your system tray? (bottom right of your screen, near the clock)

Try running scandisk and a virus scan.

[JetaJam]

Yea I did a thorough scandisk and a complete virus scan, and I am using selective startup, It's a pretty clean startup, (scanreg,system tray,statemanager,scheduling agent,ssdpsrv, and run)

[GaryRouth]

See if you can remove the items that you don't want starting (the ones you're using selective startup for) with either the "Options" or "Preferences" menus in the offending programs, or track down where they are starting from & delete their entries (whether in Win.ini or from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Run key in the Registry [you'd use regedit, and make backups first] . . .(this is all to try a normal startup again) see if that changes anything.

Can't hurt to test your hardware. DocMemory ( http://www.simmtester.com ) gets recommended a lot. And you should have the hard disk diagnostics disk somewhere, since you built the machine yourself.

If it's really cold in the spot where the computer is in the morning, the hard drive might be having trouble with that: things expand a little after warming up. And on the other end of the spectrum, might boot with the case off, just to make sure it's not the fans taking too long to spin up (not often, but I once saw a stock Amd fan for a Duron that would spin sluggishly or not at all at startup - and no, it wasn't a variable speed temp-controlled fan - it was just defective)

And just to practice everything, see if it boots fine to Safe Mode first thing in the morning - that would point to a driver issue.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[p.s. . . . and of course, if none of this helps, you still have the option of trying a System Restore point prior to the strange lockups]

[JetaJam]

Thanks for the tips GaryRouth, that's alot of info for me to check on today, but I'm going to try them all. I seem to remember a norton utilities memory test I ran awhile ago, the memory test failed, said it had a failure at address (0000###) I don't know what address it was. The machine was running fine at that point, and the memory was being detected correctly (pny 512 pc133) in the system information. If memory has a bad module or something wouldn't the whole stick be bad? and would that prevent windows from loading?

[GaryRouth]

Yes, bad RAM can cause Windows not to load, random reboots, system hangs, all sorts of mayhem.

I don't have Norton Utilities, but if it's got a memory tester, that's good - run it a few times and see if it returns similiar errors each time. If that test only runs in Windows, try a run of DocMemory, too - since it runs from DOS.

I don't know that much about PNY memory, except that they've been in retail stores for a long while now. One thing I seem to see with a lot of their memory is the "Lifetime Warranty" advertised. So if it is a bad stick, they'll replace it at no cost to you. Generally, I buy Crucial memory, and premium Samsung. If PNY stands by it's products, though, you should be OK.

It would be nice if it's just a bad RAM stick: that doesn't take long to fix, or cost you money (in this case).
. . . Gary

[p.s. ... in case the memory is OK - when you installed the new board last month, was it to an existing WinME install? did you use the "Enum trick" (over in the Tips & Tricks section)? If all this proves to be the case, make sure to try Safe Mode on 1st boot a few times - you could have older drivers and Registry entries leftover from the board you replaced. - and . . is the new board a different chipset than the older? it will probably need different MB drivers if so]

[JetaJam]

Yes Gary, the new board was installled with the old hard drive. I just loaded all the drivers required with the new board via the installation cd. Also, the old mobo had on board video, and I installed a geforce2 video card with this one, and again loaded the required drivers via the installation cd...........I am going to try and run docmemory now and I'll post back soon. Thanks.....
P.S. Also the old mobo had an ALI 1631 chipset and Nvidia TNT2 video. The new board has the Intel 815EP chipset and of couse I stated that I installed the geforce2 video card. Could it be possible that I may have some driver conflicts going on....HELP

[JetaJam]

I just completed the DocMemory (burn in / take forever test) and every thing passed. Also pulled off the "enum trick" (that's pretty cool) without a hitch, well almost. I had several yellow flags in device manager, but followed GLC's recomendations and removed all the doubles, it's now OK. I shut it down for awhile and tried to boot back up and it still hung at the boot screen. Then I did what I always do (slugged it, not really ) hit the reset and booted back up. I'll try it again tomorrow. Thanks for all the suggestions. Any thing you can think of, please feel free to let me know..........You guys a great

[GaryRouth]

One thing I like to do with systems that might have troublesome leftovers is to run a Registry Cleaner of some sort. You mentioned Norton Utilities. I think that has a Registry Cleaner in it somewhere - you might try running it to see if it helps. (I'll assume it's a WinME compatible version)

If you still have the manual for the motherboard, you could also look in on your settings: see if everything looks right. Does your 815 board have onboard lan? Are you using the onboard sound? If you have separate cards for lan and audio, you'll usually want to disable the onboard ones. Sometimes it's a bios setting, sometimes it's a jumper on the motherboard, sometimes both (It's all in your motherboard manual).

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[and just for curiosity's sake - on 1st boot tomorrow morning, try Safe Mode right away & see if anything hangs = I don't think it will hang in Safe Mode]

[mike breck]

Yes,

As Gary has said, it is very important that you try booting into Safe Mode a few times to see if there is a problem with drivers.

Just hold down the Shift key when the PC is booting.

If you can't get into Safe Mode, then it's a whole, new ballgame.

Assuming you can get into Safe Mode, did you add any new programs or hardware prior to the problem starting? If it was working fine up until then, the chances are whatever you've added is causing the problem.

You can identify troublesome drivers by using Bootlog Analyser.

www.vision4.dial.pipex.com.

However, read article Q127970 at the MS Knowledge Base first before using it.

Another possiblity is an IRQ conflict.

The easiest way to troubleshoot a Resource Conflict is to remove as much of the system's hardware as possible. Take out all the PCI cards, disconnect printers, scanners, and other peripherals apart from the mouse. Don't uninstall the drivers for any devices - just leave them be.

Then start Windows. If Windows loads, then one of the devices was causing a conflict.

Add them back one at a time (starting Windows after adding each one) until Windows fails to load. The last device you added will be the faulty one.

HTH

[DragonNOA1]

sorry if this was already mentioned b/c i didn't read the rest of the posts but if u installed the old hard drive on a new mobo w/o reformating the old drivers and even o/s might dislike the changes and "act up" every so often.

[ghitch75]

yes had the same problem with taking a drive out and put it in another machine it acted realy crazy till i formated and went the a clean o/s install...like dragon said it got be trying to boot with some of the old drivers from the old mobo.

[JetaJam]

To everyone who helped with this issue, THANK YOU. After the enum trick I still had some problems. Well I corrected everything with a reformat of C and a clean install of windows ME. All is fine now. Again let me say that I read these forums on a regular basis and the information in these threads is priceless. There are so many knowledgable people here. With any luck some of this information might just sink in. Thank again......